POLICE ALWAYS FIND SCAPEGOATS: The Albany police and sheriff agreed to “prevent” the big stuff, especially murder, by hauling people in for trivial stuff. That’s outrageous. It is designed to make it look like they are doing something by targeting the Black, poor and minority communities. They always pay the price for whatever is going wrong and here we go again. I am disgusted.
PREJUDICE AS POLICY: Sheriff Apple says he “firmly believe[s]” that increasing enforcement of the small stuff will solve the big problems.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG: Policing the small stuff means that police attention will be drawn to the wrong people at the wrong places at the wrong times.
MAKING IT WORSE: They want to make life miserable and give African-American kids an education in crime in holding pens and jails.
NEVER MIND EVIDENCE: There is no evidence that policing small stuff solves serious crime. This is New York City’s acknowledged failure brought to Albany.
PREJUDICE RULES: Following police myths and what they “really believe” in the face of actual evidence gives free reign to their prejudices.
DITCH THE MAYOR, THE CHIEF AND THE SHERIFF: Stop the crud and stop the cops from taking their failures out on our kids and making everything worse. Better to throw Sheehan, Apple and Hawkins to the wolves and revamp police funding in its entirety.
Constitutionalism and Democracy 